Whether you are looking to rent a room, an apartment, or an entire island, the first step you do is navigating the internet and looking for the best vacation home rental sites that have all you need to facilitate the process of finding and renting a vacation home rental. With the continuous increasing demand for vacation home rentals, more people become interested in investing not only in real estate properties and becoming landlords, but also in creating the best vacation home rental sites. Let us together discover what makes a competitive vacation home rental website and what the best vacation home rental sites out there are.
What Makes a Rental Website One of the Best Vacation Home Rental Sites?
The demand over short-term rentals is increasing more than ever, and vacation home rentals can be found almost anywhere in the states nowadays. In response to the increasing request by families, couples, and groups of friends to find better options than those offered by hotels and motels, a new wave of vacation home rental websites invaded the internet, giving people more options and access to different types of vacation homes and real estate properties. Therefore, more people are becoming interested in creating vacation home rental websites. However, what are the most important characteristics of the best vacation home rental sites?
- Best Vacation Home Rental Sites: Easy to Navigate
It is a no-brainer that the more traffic and viewers a website generates and gets, the higher its popularity will become and the more customers it will attract. As we live in a fast-paced world, customers tend to use websites that are clear with their instructions and easy to access. Customers who tend to use vacation home rental websites generally want to save some time and efforts and easily find different types of listings.
- Best Vacation Home Rental Sites: Offer Various Rental Options
The best vacation home rental sites attract a large segment of customers including: single tourists, couples, business travelers, and families. However, in order for this to happen, vacation rental websites should focus on providing a wide range of vacation rentals from couches and single rooms to home rentals, with different prices that people with low or middle income can afford. The best vacation home rental sites also offer listings in almost every corner of the US, from the vibrant and lively vibes of New York City to the relaxing and quiet settings of Pullman in southeast Washington State.
- Best Vacation Home Rental Sites: Reliability and Trustworthiness
The extensive usage of online services in the 21st century makes our lives dramatically easier; however, it comes with a price of questioning their reliability and trustworthiness. It is a bit hard to say that a website is 100% safe as there is always a 1% chance of it being unreliable, but with the increasing competition among vacation rental sites to generate higher traffic and attract customers, developers are trying to make websites as reliable as possible and avoid customers’ complains as they can make or break their websites’ reputation and trustworthiness easily.
What Are the Best Vacation Home Rental Sites Out There?
With the phenomenon of emerging vacation rental websites, let us take a look at the best vacation rental sites out there and describe their services.
Related: Vacation Rental Websites: Comparing Airbnb, VRBO & Booking.com
Ever since its establishment in 2008, the number of hosts and guests using Airbnb is dramatically increasing. Airbnb investment property is an online service and marketplace that offers a platform for hosts to rent out short-term lodges including apartments, a private or a shared room, homestays, vacation rentals, and couches with basic amenities like access to a kitchen and living room, heating, AC, shampoos, and extra bed and bath sheets. It consequently provides access for guests and travelers to search for affordable places to stay in during their travelling for a short period of time. Airbnb is a great way for people to join real estate investment and make money from the comfort of their house and also for guests to find affordable short-term lodges and live the entire experience of their travelling.
Airbnb charges a service fee to both guests and hosts upon booking, and it has a well-developed communication platform between guests and hosts, making it one of the best vacation rental sites out there and increasing its reliability and trustworthiness for both Airbnb guests and Aitbnb hosts.
Related: 8 Steps to Finding an Airbnb Investment Property
VRBO
VRBO is another well known rental website in the US as it provides countless options for customers who are looking to rent out a short-term rental property, covering almost 190 countries. However, unlike Airbnb, which requires service fee upon booking, VRBO requires an annual subscription fee of $399 by property owners, whether their property has been booked by customers using VRBO or not. This makes it a little bit risky for owners to pay the fee because no booking guarantees can be provided.
VRBO basically provides real estate investors with a platform to advertise for their rentals and gives customers a chance to navigate any rental options and contact owners.
Couchsurfing
Couchsurfing is an online community which offers host accommodations where travelers/guests can stay for free – they will likely be offered a couch or spare air mattress. Couchsurfing is great for travelers and backpackers who want to discover new places and make friends. You basically create a profile to tell people about yourself and use it to access free accommodation or host travelers or even meet people from different backgrounds.
HomeAway.com
HomeAway.com is perfect for traditional private rentals where viewers can find thousands of listings, mainly in the United States, from the most vibrant cities to the most secluded ones. All you have to do is to create a free account and use filters for dates, number of guests, and locations to narrow down search results, and then you get the chance to either book and pay or ask hosts questions.
HomeAway.com also gives you the chance to save properties you like and post feedback and rate the accuracy of listings on a five-star scale.
AllTheRooms.com
What if you want to search for vacation rentals on more than one website to get better and wider results but do not have enough time? AllTheRooms.com is your way to go.
It is a search engine that enables you to search Airbnb, VRBO, Couchsurfing, HomeAway.com, and countless other vacational rentals websites simultaneously, making it one of the largest accommodation search engines out there. All you need to do is to type the place and dates of your travel and use the filters such as price, amenities, reviews and ratings, etc. to narrow down the results.
Bottom Line
Although the above-mentioned websites provide similar services for customers, each one of them has its own uniqueness and provides you with different listings. It all starts with a clear understanding of your needs and what kind of vacation home rental you are looking for as well as knowledge of the best vacation home rental sites that are available out there. When using these websites, take your time to check as many options as possible, read all information published, get familiar with different websites, and do not hesitate to ask any questions in mind to the host or landlord prior to booking.
Related: What’s the Best Option on the Market for Short-Term Rentals?
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